1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of computers, and in particular to wireless computers receiving signals from short-range transmitting devices. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for providing access to government benefits by locating, detecting, prompting purchase of, and monitoring eligible Women, Infants, and Children (“WIC”) items in a store.
2. Description of the Related Art
The United States Department of Agriculture administers a special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, commonly referred to as “WIC”. The WIC program targets the low-income, nutritionally at risk population. In particular, the WIC program may assist pregnant women, infants up to their first birthday and children up to their fifth birthday. The WIC program provides many benefits to such women, infants and children, such as supplemental nutritious foods, nutrition education and counseling at WIC clinics and screening and referrals to other health, welfare and social services. The WIC program currently serves approximately 3.82 million children, 1.95 million infants and 1.86 million women at a cost of approximately 4.7 billion dollars.
Currently, WIC participants may receive checks or vouchers to purchase specific foods each month that are designed to supplement their diets. The foods provided are high in one or more of the following nutrients: protein, calcium, iron and vitamins A and C. These are the nutrients frequently lacking in the diets of the program's target population. Different food packages are provided for different categories of participants.
The WIC foods in a food package that are available to be purchased by a particular WIC participant may not be easily identified in a grocery store. Some of these WIC items may be identified, such as by a sticker with the label “WIC authorized”. However, these stickers may not be self-evident. For example, the WIC eligible items, along with their WIC eligible labels, may be stocked in high or low positions on a shelf and hence may not be easily identified. Furthermore, not all of the WIC eligible items may be marked.
After the WIC participant placed the eligible WIC items that could be located in the grocery cart, the WIC participant may hand the cashier a paper voucher to purchase the items. There are various problems with using paper vouchers to purchase WIC items. For example, the cashier may assume incorrectly that the items purchased with the voucher were all eligible WIC items. Furthermore, using the paper voucher to purchase WIC items may result in long waits by retailers for reimbursement. Furthermore, the WIC participant may be uncomfortable to hand the cashier a WIC paper voucher due to the stigma associated with receiving food for free from a government program. Finally, users have traditionally experienced confusion in tracking the most efficient use of their benefits from a price-benefit perspective. Additionally, conventional solutions lead to voided transactions (e.g. for lack of funds or benefits), because the user has limited ability to predict total real prices before a transaction is complete.
Consequently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2002 promulgated a program, referred to as the Electronic Benefits Transfer (“EBT”) program, designed to replace the time-consuming and error-prone paper voucher system that was costly to administer, often uncomfortable for participants to use, and could result in long waits by retailers for reimbursement. Pilot programs for implementing the EBT program are now occurring across the country.
However, there are no currently available mobile shopping user interface systems that implement the WIC-EBT standard in a manner that is adequate for assisting the WIC participant in locating their WIC eligible items in the store and completing the purchase most beneficial to the participant.
This is especially true at the actual time of the purchase, such as in a grocery store or similar retail establishment. The prior art is inadequate to target the WIC-buying audience and facilitate their transactions. What is needed is a system, method and computer program product for providing access to government benefits by locating, detecting, prompting purchase of, and monitoring eligible Women, Infants, and Children (“WIC”) items in a store.